


The Study Of Man’s Devices

by AlmesivaMoonshadow



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 3
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Analysis, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Character Study, Crimes & Criminals, Depression, Drabble Collection, Drug Abuse, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Molestation, Multi, One Shot, Other, Parent/Child Incest, Past Child Abuse, Pedophilia, Period-Typical Racism, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Rape, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Slavery, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:37:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7513849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmesivaMoonshadow/pseuds/AlmesivaMoonshadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All roads lead to Rome the same way all roads on Rook, sooner or later, lead to insanity – yet, all her multiple, diverse inhabitants reached the goal of universal dementia through their own rocky path of choice. The destination might be the same for each and every one of them, but – the course taken never truly is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vaas Montenegro, I (Segregation)

* * *

_-"A sister can be as someone who is both ourselves_

_and very much not ourselves._

_A special kind of double."-_

**― (Toni Morrison) ―**

* * *

 

 

 

It was like that, ever since the beginning;  
They always had their little games – Citra and Vaas.  
Their little ways to pass the hours as they climbed the jungle canopies.  
Raced through the white dusts of the clear, breezy shoreline embracing the seaside.  
Braided each other’s hair beneath the quiet, thickening shade of the palm trees.  
Wrestled in the mimicry of the hunter and the prey – the gazelle and the tiger.

 

She was just as nimble, just as fast as him – even faster sometimes.

 

On occasion, Vaas would let her triumph, just as any kind brother would.  
On occasion, she would earn her victory alone, singlehandedly.

 

 

 

 

He never minded, though – in a child’s mind, these early, tender years were the era of an earthly paradise unbroken – the time of peace, carelessness, foolishness – heaven before it’s fall – the stories Christian missionaries brought over with the goods supplied by some godforsaken humanitarian organization he couldn't name in his youthful ignorance – Vaas wished for the unchanging monotony of eternal repetition. He wished that they could stay like this forever. Brother and sister. Playmates. Companions. Shadows on the prowl. Warm bodies which dutifully protect each other during the wet, raging monsoon season, when the loudness of the midnight storms breaks loose across the darkening forest floor outside, and he crawls to Citra for safety and she cuddles to him for warmth. Limbs entwining in adoration. But, his world was sure to shatter, at one point when she started turning distant without explanation. Without rhyme or reason. The secrets of a woman, they merely told him. She was growing older with each passing day, and thus – growing further and further away from him as well. Maturing just as he attempted so hard to remain a self-proclaimed Peter Pan forever. The circle of damnation.

 

 

 Time was his greatest enemy.

Time made his sister grow up too fast.

Empty wishes were keeping his mind stunted.

Like a divine idol trapped in stone - carved in wood.

Her perfect warrior was now a perfect nobody she never addressed.

 

 

Sooner then not, the elder-women, the healers, the councilors of the tribe closed the bamboo doors of her muddy little shack shut on him, her closest, dearest, truest confidante, her friend and her lover – hushed him out, pushed him away like a stranger begging for alms at the foot of the temple, explained through secretive, venomous snake-whispers that he had no business being here. She bled that month for the first time – she was becoming fit for her place. Vaas didn’t understand, he saw Citra bleed numerous times before, from scratches, wounds and scars he dutifully healed and tended to himself on her scraped knees and torn knuckles after their robust, daredevilish rumbles through the branches sprawled across the sandy oceanic perimeter. But, never like this. This signified the trait of an incoming adulthood. She was leaving him and becoming unfamiliar, alien and so very odd. Someone he didn't recognize. Couldn't lean on anymore. Of course he couldn't. The bastardy of his Argentinian parentage would come to haunt him one day, he was well-aware. Citra would turn and leave much like the nameless, faceless specter that his father did once he was done raping, pillaging and murdering half of their mother's settlement back in the days before the divide - there were disdainful of him because he was not fully Rakyat, in that pure-blooded, clean way they admired, to him, on the other hand, they were the only family he ever had, despite of their cold-shoulder, crooked gazes and negligence.

 

 

Seven days it took God to create all life, the white, black-robed priests said.  
Seven days it took Citra to re-emerge after an infinity of silence.  
When she did, she was no longer herself.  
Not entirely.

 

 

The markings of the clan covered her waist and her uncovered shoulder. Her chin. Fresh ink, pitch black and shining. The insignia of the Goddess. The matron. The mother. Her head shaved. Her eyes dull. Green arrows. Cold, remorseless. Her mind so full of pride that it nearly scared him – and he feared absolutely nothing, to add to the irony of his predicament. Not death. Not destruction. Not decay. She spoke to him in the manner someone speaks to their lowliest courtly-jester. He had the habit of making her laugh before for the sheer pleasure of the sound – so musical, melodic and sweet – but now, it seemed that she was hilarious to him without even trying. Mixed blessings.

 

 

 

As long as he could still deserve the positivity of her reaction, he’d be pleased.  
Even if it’s achieved through the belittlement and mockery of everything he was.  
Everything he sought to be, for her sake and her sake alone.

 

 

They never played again afterwards.  
Vaas Montenegro aimlessly traversed the jungles alone.  
He was a boy and he never took another like-minded compatriot again.


	2. Hoyt Volker, I (Alternation)

* * *

  _-"What is a son,_

_but the extension of the father?"-_

**― (Frank Herbert) ―**

* * *

 

 

 

Africa never suited him.  
The climate, maybe – searing and dry.  
Much like his character, his quips, his humor, even then.  
Hoyt’s temper burned just as hot as the sun, beneath his exterior.  
Cool, calm and frigid until he exploded in a flash of violence – hooliganism.  
Barbaric misbehavior, they called it, his caretakers, maids, nurses, guards.  
But, outside of being born into this place, he loathed the prohibitions.

 

 

The Apartheid was far from easy on a child of mixed heritages.  
Even hard when the child’s own father despised him.

 

 

 

Cobus branded him a wretched, vile villain before Hoyt even had a chance to utter his first words from the cradle they had dragged down for him from the attic. Momma and Papa. Whatever insipid, moronic thing a toddler might blabber out in the manners of a slimy little frog. He was, even as an infant, perceived as the devil incarnate beneath this roof. A blemish on the dazzlingly white European line of the Volker family. Arrogant, Colonialistic and Boer by heritage. It wasn’t his fault daddy-dearest was a living, breathing hypocrite. It was even less his fault that daddy-dearest hated his black servants and imported Columbian manual workers all until it was time to drag them away to some dark, hidden corner of the house and fuck them in a drunken stupor of lust and madness. His birth was an unfortunate accident, he kept hearing. The Boss got drunk one day, Lord bless his poor, tortured soul – the maid was provoking him, as all women usually do. The primordial sin of Eve. It was her fault, not his. If she became rounded through some ill-conceived accident or misunderstanding, it was her cross to bear, not his own. God forbid Cobus Volker take responsibility for anything but the whereabouts of diamond smuggling and financing yet another war somewhere further up the African coastline. Civil unrests are good. Civil unrests made him a very wealthy, prosperous man. The Boss liked to see people die, through him, Hoyt developed the penchant as well. Like father, like son.

 

 

 

He cut the house hound open purely to see the dog squeal and spill it’s own guts.  
Father forced him to spend the night in the kennel cages as punishment.

 

 

But, he assumed, if he must be a villain, he’d be the best villain he could possibly be.  
Cobus would never see him as a success, as a champion, as his pride and joy.  
Hoyt tried once, admittedly – he tried rather hard at that.  
He tried to learn Dutch, the pure kind.  
Back from the old country.  
To impress Papa.

 

Not the messed up, kitchen type they spoke in Joburg.

 

 

To respond to his attempts, Cobus told him he’s butchering the tongue.  
Slobbering like a goddamn mutt undeserving of it’s bone.

 

 

Hoyt came to the conclusion then and there that he would leave this place one day – by boat, by ship, by foot, if need be. He’d show the world just the type of soulless rat he can be. Serve all of papa’s prophecies right. Prove all the bad predictions accurate. Congratulate all the naysayers and make them truthful in the darkest of accusations. Hoyt Volker would grow up to no good. The boy was a taint. A troublemaker. A cockroach. He was a Richard Plantagenet. A hunchback king without a hunch.

 

And when the Apartheid fell back in ’94 – he was determined to become his very own Shakespearean, bottled spider - so, he did.


	3. Buck Hughes, I (Evolution)

* * *

_-"The sings of sociopathy are usually_

_there before we are abused._

_Most of us just don't know enough to recognize them."-_

**― (P.A. Sprees) ―**

* * *

 

 

 

People universally believed something must have been wrong with sweet little Bambi.  
That someone must have hurt my dearly to push him into such a state.  
Into such a disarray of violence, aggression and blood-lust.  
He was sick, abused, perhaps angry.  
Child delinquency.  
A desperate cry for attention.  
A desperation for acknowledgement, love.  
They often questioned his old man, Gabe, what the matter was.  
Yet, neither Gabriel nor Martha Hughes could decipher the riddle that was their son.  
As he grew, they all came to grips with it – their child, was somewhat psychotic.  
And there was nothing in the blue, wide world they could do about it.

 

 

 

Truth of the matter, nothing was wrong with Bambi Hughes. Despite of common misconceptions and idle, gossiping tongues, he had no sob story to tell. No tragedy to reveal. His father was an honest, hard-earning. worker. Part time in the military. His mother, a duteous, dedicated housewife like any other. He had no siblings, thank Christ. If he did, those poor sods would probably wake up with a pillow smothering their face in the middle of the night. The neighbors, farmers and the curious locals were convinced that his da’ was beating him senseless in his spare time for the slightest of missteps. Making too many prohibitions. Harassing him. Putting him through all the harsh, hard disciplinary measures his mates suffered through daily, hiding their belt marks beneath the material of their jackets as they somberly ran to school after their early morning punishment. But, Bambi experienced none of that. Part of him wished he had. Semi-curious. Semi-envious. Morbidity his middle name. He felt somewhat alien, out of place – inadequate – being the only boy his age he knew who never suffered a single lashing in his life. So, he started causing trouble, mischief, chaos, purely in anticipation on the infamous belt-beating across someone’s lap. Damaging school property, threatening the students with a pocket knife on multiple occasions, field brawls, bringing alcohol unto the grounds, numerous fights, records of criminally homosexual behavior with his peers and an underage arrest record or two. Gabriel, even after all of that, never actually took it upon him to scold him or corporally re-educate him.

 

 

 

Maybe he was partially spoiled the day he realized he had a leaning towards torture.  
Never got put down, slapped around or hurt, so he done unto others.  
Done unto others what was never done to him.  
Over pampered, over indulged.  
Bambi was a piece of shit.

A well-read, bookwormish piece of shit, a piece of shit nonetheless.  
A piece of shit fascinated by the scoldings left unexperienced.

 

 

 

The only ache he ever suffered was name-teasing. Children unable to understand what kind of sane, well-meaning, mature parent would baptize their son _“Bambi”_ and get away with it. His ma’ and pa’ believed him a sweet little infant when he was born. Doe-eyed, innocent, clean, just like a baby-dear worthy of any Walt-fairytale, thus the distasteful, frankly ridiculous comparison. But, in craving humiliation, degradation and debasement, the first time some sorry sod made fun of his name to his face – balls of iron that he had, Bambi waited for him in a dark alleyway after school and tackled the boy senseless, fucking him into the cold, wet pavement of downtown Melbourne after hours, letting him to bleed his own juices down on the abandoned one-way street. The kid wouldn’t tell anyone. Victims of rape often times didn’t. Especially men. Too proud. Too stubborn. Too toxic for their own good.

 

 

 

 

It was then that he became Buck.  
Long before a long-planned tattoo ever grazed his chest.

The fascination with parental limitations became harassment.  
Harassment, abuse and assault.  
Assault, organs ruptured.  
Rib-cages torn.

 

 

 

Hughes-Junior was growing backwards, and he was damn proud of it, cheeky, blue-eyed bastard that he was.


End file.
